Presently, in the medical field, there, are a number of expert systems that use preset rules to make medical diagnoses and like decisions. Generally, their use has not been accepted by physicians because they are not trusted to make reliable decisions. The physician or other care provider is generally uncomfortable with being unable to see all stages of the decision-making process.
Nevertheless, some form of automation that allows a patient requiring continuing supervision a degree of independence is desirable. For example, a patient may require monitoring of his blood pressure and other parameters whilst undergoing a course of treatment. Certain fluctuations and trends in his blood pressure level may be of considerable interest to his physician but it is not desirable that the patient should contact the physician or other care provider on a highly frequent basis and it is not always practical to provide the patient with a full set of rules for events that should be reported, especially when multiple parameters are involved. It is likewise not always practical to ask a patient to keep records of the monitoring results that could reveal important trends.
A pending patent application, Ser. No. 09/428,430 of the present applicant, which is hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a medical condition sensing system including a multiplicity of general purpose computers disposed in user locations. The computers are connected via a computer network to a controller computer remote from the user locations. Personal parameter measuring software is resident at the user location and the controller computer for measuring a personal parameter of a user, such as heart rate, blood pressure etc. Parameter reference levels are set and the controller computer compares a currently measured personal parameter with a corresponding reference and provides a comparison output. In essence the system awards points for levels of an individual personal parameter measured and decides to take action after a given number of points have been exceeded, the given number being set per user to take into account the parameters being measured and the condition being considered.
The above-described system provides the physician or other care provider with a system that allows a patient to carry out self-monitoring at home, and at the same time ensures that the physician or other care provider will be informed promptly if a certain points threshold is reached.
The above-described system, however, makes decisions on a summation basis, and therefore physicians are not fully confident of being able to receive reliable results in all circumstances.